Brooke (4 page)

I shook my head.

“How else could I look like a teenager or a woman just twenty, right?”

“I don't even know what plastic surgery does,” I confessed.

She wasn't listening. “Plastic surgery is the artificial last resort,” she lectured. “It's for the lazy. If you watch your diet, exercise, and nurture your skin the way you and I do, there is no reason to go under the knife.”

“Should I get out now?” I asked. I didn't want to interrupt her, but the water was getting cold.

“What?”

“Should I get out of the bathtub?”

“Oh, first we want to rinse out your conditioner,” she said, and went to the small hose again. “From now on, you'll be able to do this yourself, and if you're too tired, you can have Joline do it.”

“This is the first time anyone's washed my hair
that I can remember,” I said. “I imagine they did when I was a baby.”

“You're always a baby when it comes to being pampered, especially by men. Never, never let them believe they've made you happy,” she advised.

“Why not?”

“They'll think they've done enough. They can never do enough. That's our motto. Okay, step out,” she said, and I rose.

“Just as I thought. You have a perky little figure, not an ounce of baby fat,” she remarked. “Actually,” she said, letting me stand there naked and not handing me my towel, “you're a bit more muscular than I expected. We don't want to be too hard,” she warned as she pinched the muscle in my thigh. “Men like their women to feel like women,” she said.

She handed me the towel finally, and I wrapped it around myself quickly, drying my body as she studied me. She looked at my pile of clothes.

“Weren't you wearing a bra?” she asked.

“No.”

“Your breasts are forming. It's never too early for a woman to worry about sagging,” she declared. “First thing we do tomorrow is buy you more underthings. Sit at the table, and I'll dry and brush out your hair.”

“Thank you,” I said, and sat with the towel still wrapped around me.

She started the blow dryer and ran the brush through my hair. “It's nice having someone else to
nurture and develop. It's as if I'm starting over. Of course, I couldn't do this with just anyone. I had to have a young girl who had promise. I'm just surprised at the size of your shoulders,” she muttered. “I wonder why I never noticed they were so broad.”

“My shoulders?”

“How did you get them to be so . . . manly? You don't do those exercises with weights, do you?”

I shook my head. What was wrong with strong shoulders?

“I suppose it's just something that happened. I'm sure it will change as your hormones do. And we can help them along,” she whispered in my ear.

“We can what?”

“Make our female hormones more efficient. I have some pills, some nutritional supplements my nutritionalist has provided. I'll tell you all about it. Oh, there's so much to do. Isn't this fun?” she said. “See how much nicer your hair feels? Go on, touch it,” she said, and I did. It did feel softer. I nodded.

“You're going to be a contestant faster than you think,” she said.

“A contestant?”

“For the beauty pageants.” She laughed. “Maybe I'll enter you in Miss Teenage New York this year. Yes, I will,” she decided instantly. “And you'll win, too. Think of what they will say.” She stepped back. The headlines flashed across her eyes as she envisioned them and drew them in the air with the brush. “Pamela Thompson's daughter declared Miss Teenage New York.' I love it.”

I stared at her reflection in the mirror. She was
still fantasizing some scene on a beauty pageant stage. My eyes went to the toilet again. “What's that?” I asked.

“What?” She looked. “Oh, that's a bidet. Don't you know what that is?” I shook my head. “You poor thing. That's to keep us clean in our private place,” she said. “You have to do it every day, too. Women don't realize how they can . . . smell.”

I looked at it, my eyes wide.

“It feels good, too,” she said. She laughed. “Men want that to be the healthiest place on our bodies, but I bet you know all about that, don't you?” she asked guardedly.

“No,” I said, “not really.”

“Not really?” She stared at me a moment. “You're a virgin?”

“Uh-huh,” I said, amazed that she would even ask.

“What a wonderful idea,” she declared, “to be virginal until you win your first big pageant. I love it. You must promise me you'll not give yourself to just any old boy, Brooke. Sex is your treasure,” she advised. “You must guard it like a dragon who guards the pots of gold in its cave, okay? We'll talk a lot more about this. That's what mothers are for. I'm a mother,” she declared, gazing at herself in the mirror. “Who in his right mind would look at me and think, even for a moment, that I was old enough?” She laughed, and then her gaze went to my clothes again.

“We've got to get rid of those. I'm sorry you brought them in here,” she said.

“What?” I asked.

She picked up my T-shirt and jeans as if they were diseased.

“Ugh. They still reek of that horrible place. I hate jeans on a girl, anyway.”

She opened a drawer and took out a pair of scissors. Before I could utter a protest, she jabbed the scissors into the seat of my jeans and tore a gash through them. Then she pulled them apart and threw them and my T-shirt on the floor.

“Just leave it there for Joline to put in the garbage,” she said.

She washed her hands as if she had been handling contaminated clothing and then smiled at my shocked face.

“Time to pick out something to wear to dinner,” she said. “We want to look beautiful together when we enter and Peter looks up from the table. We want to take his breath away. From now on, every time we walk into a room together, we want to captivate our audience. That,” she declared with a sharp nod, “is what we were placed on earth to do.”

Before I followed her out to the bedroom, I went to my jeans and took out my hair ribbon, thankful to see that it hadn't been cut in two. I clutched it tightly in my hand, and as she sifted through all my new clothes, I shoved it into a dresser drawer. I was afraid she might want to throw that out, too.

“No, no, no, maybe, yes,” she declared, and plucked the blue dress off its hanger. “Try this,” she said, handing it to me, and stood back.

Why did she have to see it on me again? I
wondered. She had seen it on me in the store. She knew what it looked like.

“Don't you think you should put on a pair of panties first?” she asked with a smile when I dropped the towel and reached for the dress.

I nodded and went to the dresser drawer. After I put the panties on, I slipped the dress over my head and pulled it down. It fit a little snugly and had wide straps and a U-shaped collar. I turned to face her, and she grimaced.

“I don't know why I didn't notice it before, but your shoulders and arms are so . . .”

“What?” I asked.

“Manly,” she repeated. “I'll have to speak to my doctor about you. There must be a way to get you to look softer,” she decided. “Now you see why clothes are like living things.”

I shook my head.

“They take on different personalities in different environments. Back at the department store, under those harsh lights, colors were washed out, and the garments appeared one way, but here, in a warmer setting, in a bedroom or in a dining room, they're different. I wouldn't have bought this one,” she concluded. “From now on, I'm going to have them bring your clothing here to try on.”

“Bring them here? You mean to my room?”

“Of course,” she said. “We were all just in too big a rush. But”–she recovered with a smile–“no harm done. We'll buy some more. That's all. I have a blue dress to wear, too. How experienced are you with makeup?” she asked.

“I put on lipstick sometimes,” I said.

“Lipstick?” She laughed. “Sit at your table. Go on. Quickly. I have my own hair to style and my own makeup to do yet.”

Why were we getting so dressed up for dinner? I wondered. Were there more people coming? Was it going to be like a party?

I sat, and she came up behind me. She turned on the magnifying mirror, and the light washed away any shadows on my face. Then she pressed her palms against my cheeks and turned my head from side to side, studying me.

She nodded. “Now that I have you under the light, I see where we have to make your nose look smaller. I want to highlight your eyes and thicken your lip line just a little.”

She began to work on me as if I were being made up for a ball. The surprise in my face was easy to see. I was never very good at disguising my feelings. Whenever I thought something was stupid, the corners of my mouth turned up in a smirk that gave my feelings away. One of my grade-school teachers, Mrs. Carden, once told me that my forehead was as good as a blackboard on which my thoughts appeared in bright, white, chalky letters.

“Every time you go out of this room, and especially every time you leave this house,” Pamela lectured, “you have to remember you are onstage. A woman, a real woman, is always performing, Brooke. Every man who looks at you is your audience. Whether we like it or not, we're attractive,
and that means men's eyes are like little spotlights always turned on our faces and bodies.

“And even if you're married for ages or going with some beau for months, you still have to surprise him with your elegance and beauty every time he sets eyes on you, understand?”

“Why?” I asked.

“Why?” She stopped working and put her hands on her hips. “Why? Because if we didn't, they would look elsewhere, for one, and because we want to be the center of their attention always. Wait, just wait,” she continued, returning to the makeup, “until you're out there, competing. You'll see. It's a cutthroat, ruthless world when it comes to winning the affections of men. Every woman, whether she wants to admit it or not, is competing with every other woman. When I walk into a room, who do you think looks at me first? The men? No. Their wives look at me and tremble.

“I have the feeling,” she concluded, “that I found you just in time. You're still young enough to develop good habits. Press your lips together. There,” she said. “Let's look at you now.”

She turned my head toward the mirror and stood behind me again, her hands moving me so that she could get a profile.

“See the difference? You walked in here a child, and now you look like a young woman, which is what I'm going to make you into.”

I stared at myself. With the eyeliner, the rouge, the lipstick, I did look entirely different, but I
wasn't sure I liked it. I felt clownish. I was afraid to utter a word, and I was terrified that my blackboard of a forehead would write out my disapproval. If it did, she didn't notice, maybe because she had covered it in makeup.

“Don't think you have to spend a lot of time in the sun to get your skin this shade, Brooke. The sunlight is devastating. Those horrible ultraviolet rays age us. We don't need it with this makeup, anyway. Well now, you look ready. Come along and talk to me while I get dressed.”

I rose and started after her.

“Wait,” she said with a harshness I hadn't heard before. “You weren't planning on walking around
barefoot,
were you?” The way she said
barefoot
made it sound like a sin.

“What? Oh,” I said, looking down.

“Put on the shoes that match the dress,” she ordered sternly.

I went to the closet and stared at the dozens of pairs she had bought me.

“The pair second from the right,” she said impatiently. “You have so much to learn. Thank goodness I came along.”

I put on my shoes and followed her out, glancing through my bathroom doors at my torn jeans and my T-shirt lying on the floor where she had thrown them. It was like saying good-bye to an old friend. Dressed in my expensive clothes, my hair styled, my face made up, I felt as if I had betrayed someone. Myself?

“Come on,” she urged when I hesitated. “Peter is
already downstairs. Of course, we must always keep men waiting. That's a golden rule. Never be on time, and never, never, never be early. The longer they are made to wait, the more their anticipation builds, and the louder the applause in their eyes,” she said. “Now, get moving. I need time to make myself more beautiful, too.”

I hurried after her, and when she opened the double doors to the master bedroom, I felt the breath spiral up from my lungs and get caught in my throat like a giant soap bubble. It wasn't a bedroom; it was a separate house!

There was a long carpeted landing that led to two steps. On the right was a living room with furniture and a television set. On the left was a bedroom that surely was fit for a queen. It was round and had its own white marble fireplace, but what was astounding to me was the bed, because it, too, was round with big, fluffy pillows. Above it was a ceiling of mirrors. There were mirrors everywhere. I gaped.

Pamela saw my amazement and laughed.

“Maybe now you'll understand what I meant when I said we were always on the stage, always performing, Brooke.” She looked at the bed and then up at the ceiling. “You know what it's like?” she asked, her voice softer but full of passion.

I shook my head.

“It's like we're in our own movie, and you know what?”

I waited, afraid to breathe.

“We're always the stars,” she said, and laughed.